Founder Of JD.com, Richard Liu

JD.com was invented by Richard Liu, and it is currently among the most popular online retail businesses in China, alongside the famous Alibaba. So far, Richard Liu has been in the retail industry for close to two decades and he has therefore gained a lot of expertise over the years. He has also shown signs of consistency in his business as well as business-related ideas.

Richard Liu Qiangdong studied at the Renmin University in China where he was pursuing Sociology. While on campus, he showed a lot of interest in coding and programming during his free time. However, he graduated in 1996 after which he got employed by a Japanese company, where he got the role of being in charge of all the computers of the business which was a company dealing with health matters. Liu Qiangdong felt quite comfortable with his role as he got the chance to exercise his specialty in coding works too. Last year, Richard Liu’s wealth was estimated by Forbes Magazine at $10 billion.

Later on, Richard Liu Qiangdong quit his office job as he wanted to join in on the entrepreneurship wave, and he opened a shop that dealt with magneto-optic products. He named his shop after his then-girlfriend as well as himself hence the name Jingdong.

Within a few years of operation, the shop had grown and even opened twelve more outlets. The business was also doing tremendously well until 2004 which saw its downfall. That year, there was a disease outbreak which made people stay indoors at their homes for fear of contracting the disease. See This Article to learn more.

The shop staff also had to wait at home as they too were scared, and no customers were coming to the shops. Jingdong made so many losses at the time, which gave Richard Liu his wake up call as he came up with the idea of having his shop operate online since he could access his customers easily without having them to come at the shop physically. JD.com was then created and has been in business since 2004, competing with other large online retailers.

Because of Qiangdong’s success in selling other goods online, Richard Liu Quiangdong has now been ranked by Business of Fashion as a top 500 “Most Influential Person In The Fashion Space”. Fashion is, of course, a $2.4 trillion market on its own.

While being interviewed by the We Forum, Richard Liu Qiangdong pointed out that there are high hopes of the stabilization of the Chinese economy since the dependence on white-collar employment has reduced tenfold, and entrepreneurship has become the usual norm.

When asked to advise how to keep his business successful even beyond borders, he highlights that one needs reliable partners from outside the home country so that the exposure of the company can be grown. Richard also points out that he never has and he will never have any political ambitions as he is comfortable with his entrepreneurial venture, from which he will only retire after he is 65 years.